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March 29th, 2013 
Peter Nolan
“I saw him about two or three weeks ago. He was, for a man of 94, OK. He
was sitting up, having a late lunch,” he said. “He looked quite
comfortable and well under the circumstances.”
He said that Mr Mandela was tougher than his appearance might suggest.
“As a prisoner he was ill on more than one occasion and he has overcome
the difficulties that he has had in his later years,” he said.
“He has had a couple of problems but somehow he always manages to
overcome any disabilities and be himself again.”
On Thursday Barack Obama, the US president, said he was “deeply concerned”
about the state of Mr Mandela’s health, describing the South African
statesman as “a hero to all of us”.
Mr Obama said he believed Mr Mandela was as strong physically “as he has
been in character and in leadership over so many decades”.
His comments came as South Africa’s president Jacob Zuma urged his fellow
countrymen not to “panic”, but raised for the first time to
prospect of the revered statesman’s demise.
“In Zulu, when someone passes away who is very old, people say he or she
has gone home. I think those are some of the things we should be thinking
about,” Mr Zuma said in a BBC interview.
Mr Mandela is understood to be at 1 Military Hospital in Pretoria undergoing
treatment for a lung infection that saw him spend almost three weeks in
hospital over Christmas last year.
Before he left his home, in the exclusive Johannesburg suburb of Houghton on
Wednesday, he is understood by The Daily Telegraph to have been
having breathing difficulties and on oxygen. Friends said he had been
labouring with a heavy cold earlier in the week.
“The doctors advise that former president Nelson Mandela is responding
positively to the treatment he is undergoing for a recurring lung infection,”
Mr Zuma’s office said in a short statement.
Members of Mr Mandela’s family including his former wife Winnie, daughter Maki
and grandson Ndaba are believed to have visited him since his admission and
have told friends he is “fine”.
President Obama said it was inevitable that people should be anxious for news
about Mr Mandela, who became South Africa’s first black,
democratically-elected president after his release from 27 years of
imprisonment in 1990 signalled the end of apartheid.
“We are deeply concerned with Nelson Mandela’s health – he is a hero, I
think, to all of us,” he said Thursday as he met four leaders from
sub-Saharan Africa at the White House.
“When we think of a single individual that embodies the kind of
leadership qualities that I think we all aspire to, the person’s name that
comes up is Nelson Mandela. So we wish him all the very best.”
He expressed a hope that Mr Mandela would pull through. “He is as strong
physically as he has been in character and in leadership over so many
decades. Hopefully he will come out of this latest challenge,” he said.
Mr Mandela has been admitted to hospital four times in just over two years and
three of the admissions have been in the past four months.
Mr Zuma said he was in “good hands”.
“Of course I have been saying to people, you should bear in mind Madiba
is no longer that young and if he goes for check-ups every now and again, I
don’t think people must be alarmed about it,” he told the BBC. “Let
us slow down the anxiety. He is responding very well and he is in good hands
with very good doctors and all of that brings comfort to all of us. I would
like to really say the country must not panic.”
He had a personal message for his predecessor, with whom he spent time
incarcerated on Robben Island as a political prisoner.
“We would like to say to him ‘Madiba, please, get better quicker – we
want to see you at home’,” he said.
He said that South Africans should be prepared for Mr Mandela to die before
long.
“I know that we would want Madiba to be with us for a long time and I
think he has been with us for a long time,” he said. “Very few
outstanding personalities in the world live to this level but I think he’s
so far, given his age and all the things you are taking about, he has been
able to handle it very well.
“He has always responded very well when he gets to hospital so let us
just be content that he will be OK.
“Of course at the right moment I will certainly (go and see him). I will
be communicating with doctors and at the right time, I will be there.”
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